


He Lives

by yaodai



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: also kanera inside, but i wanted to have my own version, maul deserves to have something nice, the one that oddly enough does not involve any murder, unless we're talking vegetables, we all know the show was talking about kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 20:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8682448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: What could possibly made Maul ignore everything and run like a madman?The Ghost Crew decided to investigate.





	

**"He Lives"**

 

"Okay, that just...happened," Hera said slowly, massaging her wrists, while the security cameras replayed the video.

At least two hours have already passed since their ship, their home was taken over - and without any visible effort on the attacker side, if the situation wasn’t bad enough on it’s own - and they still were trying to make sense of it all.

It wasn’t making any; the whole situation seemed to be taken right out of some ridiculous holo-drama.

"I'm glad he walked himself out," Zeb grunted. "I have no clue how else we would make him leave."

"Don't remind me," Hera grimaced. They really tried everything safe for blowing up the Ghost and a group suicide wasn't really something she wanted to do ever. If there was anything good about this day it was the fact that now they knew exactly how Ghost could be breached and taken over by an enemy, blessed be the security cameras; everything was recorded and  ready for an analysis, so the necessary upgrades would be made as soon as possible.

"Can we keep that part where he ran into the wall?" Sabine giggled. "That's like the only bright point of this day."

"I'm just glad everyone's okay," Kanan said with a sigh.

"Well, I’m not sure about the everyone part," Hera muttered. "Something had to rile him up to the point we were deemed unimportant," Hera muttered and stole a gaze at Ezra.

It didn't go unnoticed.

The boy - young man actually, he grew so much in such a short time he was now higher than her - lowered his gaze with guild clearly visible on his face.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, but I really needed to know!"

"Ezra, there are things you're better off not-" Kanan started.

"But not that!" Ezra cut him out. "We're fighting for what, three years? Four? And do you see any change? Any change at all? Because I don't, I really try, but I don't unless it's bad, and it feels like no matter what I do, no matter what we do it's not getting better!"

"Ezra..." Hera reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he evaded her.

She knew he had his doubts. They all had and hard times were making it more and more difficult to stay optimistic, to hope that things will get better. Still, the sudden stream of words and hurts coming out of Ezra was unexpected.

Hera wanted to ease the boy somehow, the image of this bright and optimistic child still vivid in her head, but she didn’t know how. Just promising that everything will be better wasn’t even close to being enough and Hera had nothing else but words at her disposal.

"I'm sorry, but that's how i see it," Ezra shook his head. "And I needed something to hang onto, something that would show me that we are risking our lives for something..."

"Ezra," Kanan said, making few steps so now he was in front of the boy. "It's okay, Ezra. breathe."

"Let's talk about it when we're away from here, shall we?" Sabine proposed, quickly cutting the troublesome conversation short. These weren’t leading anywhere nice, not when the emotions were still high and raw. She knew it well, she was at the same spot a year ago.

Hera felt nothing but being grateful for the help, even if it was nothing but pushing the issues to solve on another day.

"It would be bad if he remembered he didn't kill us and turned back only to find us patiently waiting here for a fiery death," Sabine continued, looking at the doors like she expected Maul to walk from around the corner at any minute.

Hera tapped her mouth with tips of her fingers, thinking.

"I'm not sure that is going to happen," she finally said. "However I'm not feeling good around here. So, where we flying?"

"There was that boring job with flying supplies around?" Zeb proposed. "The one we were trying to argue ourselves out off, because boring?"

"Boring sounds good," Sabine enthusiastically nodded. "Temporarily I don't mind to do the space-truck stuff. Temporarily."

 

xxx

 

"What did you see?"

The hyperspace was humming softly around the ship. The cargo was secured and just a bit more travel time away from being delivered where it needed to be. Nobody was talking much during the mission, despite the fact that it was as boring as Sabine has predicted.

Apparently, Kanan has decided that the cooldown time was over.

"I thought knowing too much is bad," Ezra replied, eyes stubbornly set where not too long ago the two holocrons were merged by him and Maul. It was his place to mop now and rest of the crew seemed to be respecting that. Well, until now.

Kanan invaded the quiet space, as unreadable as even, all the emotions hidden behind the mask that stared at him with a stern, judging look.

Ezra knew there was a lot of symbolism behind it, he knew that Satine and Rex put a lot of thought and effort into it, but he couldn’t help himself: he hated that thing.

"We need to know what Maul saw," Kanan said slowly. "Who Maul saw. Whoever it was, that person is in danger."

"You think so?"

"I don't want to risk with someone's life just because I'm not sure," Kanan said. "Please. Talk to me."

Okay," Ezra nodded. "Okay. First we ah... I think we were looking for different things. Looking at different things."

He furrowed his brow.

"No, that's not right," he corrected himself. "I was looking at things, he wasn't able to see anything."

He remembered feeling the anger rising through whatever the connection they had through the merged holocrons, the fiery rage quickly growing and growing, and growing.

"He couldn't see, so he told me to  help him, to look for him."

And so Ezra did, because the fury he was facing was bordering on being overwhelming, so dark and unforgiving. It was like staring into the depths, only to discover that something was staring right back.

"What he was looking for?"

"This is going to sound odd, but..." Ezra licked his lips. "Hope."

"Hope?" Kanan asked, his back straightening, while his shoulders slightly slumbered, body language all about surprise.

"Yeah, wasn't expected that one," Ezra nodded. "Since he had everyone at a gunpoint, I had no choice but to help him. Shortly after you walked in, everything exploded and he ran out like a madman, holocrons, me and murder all forgotten."

Which Ezra found to be as much relieving as it was stinging.

For someone so dead set of making him his apprentice, Maul was sure quick to drop everything in an instant.

"Why would he look for something like that?" Sabine shook her head. "That doesn't make sense!"

"Yeah, that's not a thing. Well, it is a thing, but not one you can put your hands on," Zeb commented. Then both of his ears turned and lied back against his neck. "Unless it is?"

"Considering his words, shouldn't be a person?" Kanan asked, muscles already tensing up in anticipation. “If it is…”

Then said person was definitely in danger, considering who Maul was, who he was before and how his kind was biased against all things like that - hope, joy, they were supposed to want to squash it all.

"I'm not sure," Ezra shook his head. "It was like... i helped him get to the place where he could see thing, but I was looking at a different set of things?"

It was all just so difficult to put in words. He knew what he was doing while surrounded by the  light coming out of the merged holocrons, he knew exactly how to pull and where to reach to get the results.

Now, all that knowledge was at the tip of his fingers, but each time he tried to get to it, it was pulling away from him. Something was missing now.

He eyed the holocrons, innocently resting on the table. They almost looked like a way too expensive knick-knack one could buy on a trip to a far away, exotic planet.

“I have like, a feeling that I know where to go, like I did when you told me to look for the Jedi temple?” Ezra guessed. “But I have no idea what to look for there, sorry.”

“This should be enough,” Hera decided with a nod. “We can’t always rely on the Force anyway. We have the place, the rest is just a riddle we’re going to solve the old fashioned way.”

Kanan sighed.

“Let me show you the map.”

Ezra nodded.

There was a bitter taste in his mouths. He was perfectly capable of accessing a map out of a Holocron at any time now, from both of them, but using the Sith holocron in secret definitely destroyed a huge amount of trust that was build between him and his master. It would take a lot o time and effort to rebuild it and Ezra feared that it never will be quite enough to get back where they once were.

 

xxx

 

The planet was one of those the Empire deemed to be of no importance whatsoever, same as the Republic once upon a time did.

It was lacking any resources that would make it precious in the eyes of civilisations capable of space-travel and it's own scientific progress was far, far behind the times. They probably learned about the space-travel only because someone at some point landed on the front lawn of one of the locals.

 

"Huh," Zeb said, jumping down on the ground. "Homey."

"Kinda on the warm side," Sabine agreed. "But we're not here for the vacations."

"Yes, let's find the person before Maul does."

"How are we going to start?" Sabine inquired, one of her eyebrows raised. "Walk around and ask people if any weirdo is looking for one of them? I'm pretty sure the only thing we will see is a finger pointed straight at us."

Zeb made a grunting noise with a grimace.

"True," he said. "We don't look like locals at all."

While the beings living on this planet had fur just as he did, they were half of his size, lithe and has thin, long fingers. The big ears on top of their heads were constantly moving with curiosity as they shamelessly ogled the visitors, while still doing their own things.

"I highly doubt that whoever Maul is looking for is a member of this species," Hera muttered. "There are no traces of the Clone Wars getting here, I don't think many Jedi visited this planet either... it's so... well."

Definitely lacking the ability to voice its problems loud enough for the Republic to hear them, these were the words she was looking for. However, considering that they treated the obvious aliens just as a something to openly gape at, she doubted they actually had a very violent history.

 

"So, we're looking for a guy that's not like the locals?" Sabine tilted her head. "That's not that bad.Through still, a whole planet. Kinda big if you ask me."

"Well, whoever Maul is looking for, they definitely had to reach this planet somehow," Hera tapped with the tips of her fingers on the chin, thinking. "Picking up a ride doesn't seem really plausible, not many ships are visiting this place, so they probably used their own ship."

Kanan tilted his head, thinking. His long hair slipped from the ponytail and now were slowly wavering on the wind, obscuring the parts of his face that weren't already hidden behind the mask.

"You think about looking for the ship?"

Hera nodded. "There usually is a characteristic energy output. The civilization here is not very advanced, so we are not going to pick up too many signatures that could be our target."

"This makes sense," Sabine nodded. "It's like moving from point A to point B and then C and so on..."

She sighed and shook her head.

"I'm not sure we have that much time, even if there's only a few signals," Sabine murmured darkly. "Maul was in hurry when he left the Ghost and I don't think he took a stop on his way here to see the sights."

"Can't you use the Force?" Hera asked carefully.

"It worked when we were looking for the planet..." Ezra furrowed his brow thinking. Would it lead them where they needed to go, like it sometimes did? Or would it rather simply let the things go their own way?

"Well, you can try that, but I would prefer to look for the guy anyway."

"Splitting up doesn't sound smart," Zeb stated grimly. "Don't you remember how it was on the ship?"

"Yeah, I do!" Sabine rolled her eyes. "But we don't want to fight Maul, we want to warn the guy. Or grab the guy and run away, whatever works better.”

“Just be careful,” Kanan nodded.

“You can’t be serious!” Zeb protested.

“He already had much more time to start the search,” Hera muttered, the grimace on her face telling the story that she fully shared Zeb opinion on the topic, but was also following what her instincts were telling her to do.

“If we want for this to work, we need to do it as quick as possible. Otherwise we might as well just return to the Ghost and fly away.”

 

xxx

 

Finding the right person ended up as a much easier task than anyone has ever anticipated.

The Zabrak was sticking out among the locals like a sore thumb. He was not only of entirely different species. His height was more than just impressive, his bright yellow skin was marked with black, complicated lines of tattoos.

"It's just me, or does he looks..?" Sabine asked, wrinkling her nose in that specific manner that usually was attached to her asking what the hell.

She was right. The man definitely looked similar. His skin had entirely different color, the black patterns of tattoos were different, but they shifted and bend in the exact same manner as the one marking Mauls body.

There were some more differences.

First of all, the man was tall. Very, very tall, towering over the itsy-bitsy little locals like a mountain.

He didn’t seem scary, or rather no one seemed to be intimidated by his presence; the locals were surrounding him, merrily chatting about everyday things and he was answering from time to time, his low voice rumbling.

“Gonna signal Hera,” Sabine whispered, her warm breath washing over Ezra's ear.

He nodded, not sure if he would be able to talk quietly enough to not be noticed.

It was just so… the Zabrak was similar enough to Maul to become in Ezra’s mind an image of what could’ve been, who Maul could’ve become if not for the Sith - the hateful words heard in the depths of Malachor returned to him, hissing the tale about lost family, lost brother, lost everything - if not for the Empire.

He couldn’t help it but, hurt, for the very person who invaded his home, who almost took the lives of his friends, who did all sort of evil things for… for what exactly?

Vengeance? Was this Zabrak just another person Maul wanted to see dead, for whatever reason? Or was it just a part of some convoluted plan?

“Follow, but do not engage,” Sabine whispered and he just nodded, too occupied by trying to crack the secret to argue with the newest orders.

 

 

xxx

 

They were too late.

Even after the whole crew met, they still made the decision to follow the man, using the opportunity to both scout the terrain and to see just what sort of a person was he.

However when they were getting nearby the where the Zabrak was living - a house, big enough for him to fit into comfortably, with clearly handmade doors - the characteristic, mandalorian ship was already there, read paint and metallic surface of it looking completely alien and out of place.

Especially since Maul, knowing no shame at all, landed in the middle of what looked like a beginning of a vegetable garden, now squashed mercilessly into the ground with the weight of several tons of a spaceship.

Why a Zabrak would need a vegetable garden was a little beyond Ezra, but that wasn’t important now.

Maul himself was not too far off.

That was probably the first time any of them saw the former Sith in full light. His skin looked much more red when he was out of shadows. Not that disturbing dark shade that looked almost like a blood, but just plain red. The dark marking were much more visible like that too, spilling down his backs and shoulders in a complicated pattern.

They all were fully expecting to jump into action at any moment. Maul was just few steps away from the house of his target, it was a matter of seconds before he would reach it. Opening the doors or kicking them in with the strength and brutality of his metal legs, or maybe that would be the moment the former Sith was going to ignite his lightsaber…

However nothing had happened. Maul was just standing there, muscles all tense and hands locked in fists, immobile and undecided.

Ezra furrowed his brow and looked questioningly at Kanan. They couldn’t just exchange glances, not after what had happened on Malachor, but the Jedi Knight seemed to come to the exact same idea as he did.

Only after receiving a nod, Ezra slowly, very slowly concentrated on the reaching no farther than mere inches away from himself, terrified of getting discovered.

Oddly enough, it was all he needed.

Maul Ezra meet at Malachor was mysterious and always in control, no matter what words were coming out of his mouths. It was easy to trust him, way too easy and it was impossible to catch any signs of danger, since barely any emotions were slipping out of his grasp strongly enough for him to read.

This, this was entirely, absolutely different. The air seemed to be buzzing with all the things radiating from the former Sith, so many and so different it was utterly confusing.

There was anger, of course it was there, but Ezra could also feel fear and anxiety, a whole set of different doubts. However there were other thing, confusion and hope, and little sparks of something bright.

In other words, the former Sith Lord was too agitated to actually walk to the doors and knock.

Before he managed to pull himself together and do something - either move forward or back away to the ship and fly away in shame, Ezra truly wasn’t sure - the decision was taken out of his hands.

The other Zabrak shown up at his front lawn and made a horrified gasp at the sight of a mandalorian ship right where it definitely wasn’t supposed to be.

The noise was strong enough to made Maul jump and turn around in one swift motion, one hand already on the lightsaber.

Ezra swallowed and grabbed his own weapon, ready to jump from the hiding place the moment the humm of blade ignition would cut the air.

It never did.

Instead, there was just a small thud made by a small piece of metal hitting the ground as Maul dropped the weapon.

He just stood there, staring, his face raw with emotions, not daring to move an inch.

"...brother?" the Zabrak they came here to protect said in a raspy voice, his eyes wide-open in disbelief. "Are you...are you really live? Are you really here...?"

"I saw you die," Maul said. "I held your... how is this possible?"

"I thought you died too," the man said. "When I came to, everything was... everything was so broken and you were nowhere to be found and I couldn't even feel your presence...!"

“I’m good at hiding,” Maul answered. His voice was soft and tired, just like during these first moments on Malachor, where the presence of another living being disrupting his forced solace temporarily shook the former Sith out of control.

The man - Savage, his name was savage though Ezra had no idea where that knowledge even came from - made the first step forward, then a second one. He reached out with a shaking hand and slowly, very slowly touched the side of Mauls face, like he expected him to be just a mirage and to disappear at any given moment.

Maul didn't move when the fingers touched him. Savage could as well brushing his hand against the cheek of a stone statue.

“I am so sorry,” Savage said softly. “I am so sorry I didn’t manage to find you this time!”

Carefully, as i he was dealing with an already cracked glass rather than a man made out of flesh and metal, made a step forward. His arm shifted, slowly making their way around Maul, until the former Sith was wrapped in a loose hug.

Maul made a pained, broken sound. His hands rose up, but it looked like he couldn't make himself to touch his brother.

Savage shifted, pulling him closer, fingers slowly making small, calming circles on his backs.

"You're really here," Savage feverishly murmured, his voice strong enough to be heard over the distance. "You're okay, you're here!"

The words, or maybe the touch, calmed Maul enough for him to finally hug his brother back. It was an desperate, awkward grasp, more fitting for someone who was about to fall than scary and powerful warrior who was just so close to murdering them all just to get here.

Hope, Ezra thought. He was looking for hope, but not because he wanted to steal what was left of the chances for the better future of the entire Galaxy.

He just wanted something, anything for himself.

"Come on," Hera whispered, her fingers ghosting their way on Kanans shoulder blade. "We don't have anything to do here."

Ezra already felt like an intruder, observing what was definitely a very private moment. They deserved to have this, to have their reunion not interrupted, to just be there.

No matter who Maul was, no matter how many lies he spinned around, Ezra was not going to rob him of a moment with his family.

Family, no matter if sewn together through a coincidence like his own, or bond together by the very blood in the veins was important and the forgotten lightsaber on the ground was enough of a proof for that.

 

"You think things are going to be okay?" Ezra asked, when the hyperspace was once again humming around the Ghost.

He was sitting next to Kanan, much closer than he did in many days, for the first time since forever feeling the need to connect instead of loneliness. He wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. Was it Maul and his brother? Was it he and Kanan? Them all?

Kanan hummed and shifted his head to the side, looking for the right answers. Hera was right next to him.

With a small smile, that blossomed on her lips the moment Kanans movement made his hair brush against her lekku, she answered instead:

“I might not know much about the Force, but I know it connects all the things there are. It wants us to be connected.”

  
  



End file.
